Geolocation In Mobile Apps Using Xamarin

Implementing geolocation requires taking advantage of device-specific location services which help provide a location to a particular user at any given point in time. There are many use cases where geolocation in mobile applications can be implemented such as displaying weather data for a user’s location, finding restaurants nearby, and navigating the user to a destination. Even if you are not developing any weather forecasting or mapping application there are many useful application of location services which includes location-specific features or pre-filling data entry forms for improving conversion rates.

Geolocation in mobile apps

Access to geolocation services from a portable class library or shared project has been once a very tough task. As all mobile operating system iOS, Android and Windows implement location services very differently, therefore, dependency injection or conditional compilation would be quite. Plugins for Xamarin are libraries which expose a single set of APIs in order to access common device functionality across the platform iOS, Android, and Windows. This enhances the amount of code which can be shared across multiple platforms hence speeding and simplifying mobile app development.

Platform Setup

To your portable class library and to the platform-specific projects, add the Geolocator Plugin for Xamarin and Windows NuGet to your cross-platform portable class library. As the user’s location is private we have to configure the application so that it can ask the user if it is okay to access their current location.

Android

For allowing an application to access location services we have to enable two Android permissions. For adding NuGet to the Android project directly, this should be enabled default by you. Make sure the following permissions are enabled.

iOS

Depending on whether you will be using geolocation or just at certain points in a user’s workflow, you either will need to add the key in your Info.plist.

How to implement Geolocation in Xamarin.Android?

Location services

Android offers access to various location technologies such as cell tower location, GPS, and Wi-Fi. The information of each location technology is fetched through location providers, therefore allowing applications to get the location irrespective of the provider used.

Maps

Mobile devices easily complement mapping technologies which are an advantage over laptops and desktops as they do not have in-built location Mobile devices use such location awareness applications for locating devices and for displaying a change in location information.

How to implement geolocation in Xamarin.iOS?

In an application we will also see some background concepts which includes registering an application as a background necessary application, suspending UI updates which the application is in the background and working with the WillEnterBackground and WillEnterForeground AppDelegate methods.

Conclusion

Geolocation is a powerful feature that can significantly enhance the functionality and user experience of mobile applications. With Xamarin and the Xamarin.Essentials library, integrating geolocation becomes a straightforward process, allowing developers to focus on creating innovative and user-friendly apps across both iOS and Android platforms.